Tag Archives: polling

In what can only be described as a sheer act of political desperation, Betsy Markey has released a polling memo that shows her statically tied with Treasurer Walker Stapleton. Without having released the full data behind her poll, however, we can’t help out B.S. on this one.

Releasing inaccurate polls to create a picture rosier than reality, is Markey’s M.O. whenever she is losing. In 2010, eight weeks out from her race against Cory Gardner, Markey released a poll that showed the two of them tied.

The Markey campaign poll showed her and Gardner with 38 percent each, independent Ken “Wasko” Waszkiewicz at 5 percent and American Constitution Party candidate Doug Aden at 2 percent. The remaining 17 percent were undecided.

Of course, we all know how that race turned out. Gardner beat Markey by 11 points, 52 to 41. The final results of that race were in line with other public polling available at the time.

When it comes to polling how the sample size is weighted and what questions are asked can be tweaked to essentially show countless outcomes. Without full transparency of who was polled and what they were asked, no poll should be trusted let alone considered close to political reality.

In contrast, Public Policy Polling recently showed her trailing Stapleton 33 to 43 with 24 percent undecided. We’re betting this is a lot closer to the truth than the fundraising ask/polling memo released by Team-Markey.

Governor Hickenlooper has been the recipient of a hard-hitting, professional attack ad campaign by Republicans just once in his political career. Once. And then Dan Maes took the GOP nomination and every outside player fled the state.

With Hickenlooper taking a 20-point hit in favorability in the latest PPP poll, it’s instructive to look back at that brief moment of political peril for the governor for what it says about his ability to take a political punch.

The assault by the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) in early May 2010 focused heavily on his raising taxes as Denver Mayor and the job losses at Frontier Airlines that happened as a result, and tied him to unpopular one-term Governor Ritter.

The smartly produced, memorable spot had a little over half a million behind it over a one-month period — a not insignificant, nor exceptionally huge, budget.

According to Anderson, the sample of the survey was 39% Democrat / 37% Republican / 24% Unaffiliated/Other. That appears to comport with current voter registration statistics in the district.

…Addressing another criticism of the poll, Anderson told The Observer that the “ballot test” question – who will you vote for – was asked before any information was conveyed to respondents about either candidate. Polls often test positive and negative messages about each candidate, with ballot test questions both before and after the messages, to see how well each one works.

In the case of the ballot test question of Coors vs. Perlmutter, the 9-point Coors lead was found from a question asked at the beginning of the poll.

Conservative website Colorado Peak Politics has called on both campaigns to release their full surveys. With the Coors campaign releasing more information, the pressure will now be on the Perlmutter campaign to divulge more about their own poll.

We'll be the first to say the Coors campaign poll is incomplete as it doesn't release crosstabs or any data to help determine if the poll is an accurate reflection of the 7th Congressional District. It also comes after Coors has been up on TV for months with large ad buys and Coors has yet to take a serious shellacking in negative attacks from the left.

That said, the Perlmutter camp doesn't have much to stand on if they're complaining about Coors' incomplete release with a total and non-existent release of their own.

How about the media calls on both sides to release their internals, crosstabs and all?

Just as ProgressNow Colorado called on Coors to release his tax returns, but not Perlmutter, how about both sides pony up?

We've been saying for the last year that Democrat polling firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) has a sampling problem — they oversample Democrats and undersample Republicans in their Colorado polls, delivering skewed results. Now The New York Times polling expert, Nate Silver, finds that PPP, on average, has a "house effect" that leans to the Democrats by 3.1 points. Rasmussen, by comparison, only shows a 1.3 point Republican lean.

Here's the NYT's finding, visually:

This means PPP's results are showing Obama doing three points better than the NYT's "consensus of surveys." Without diving into the statistical weeds, what this basically does is create results that paint a rosier reality for Obama and Democrats than actually exists according to a roundup of the best publicly available polling.

The Grey Lady endorsement of a point we've been making for some time now is especially painful for PPP, who in their April Colorado poll ended the press release with this sentence:

PPP is a Democratic polling company, but polling expert Nate Silver of the New York Times found that its surveys in 2010 actually exhibited a slight bias toward Republican candidates.

No one noted it at the time, but this sentence was conspicuously absent from their last press release on Colorado poll results. Maybe PPP should update their press release template with this:

PPP is a Democratic polling company, and polling expert Nate Silver of the New York Times found that its surveys in 2012 have exhibited a strong bias toward Democratic candidates.

This is a fact we hope reporters covering future PPP polls note in their coverage, as PPP's previous New York Times spin has ended up in print (cough*Tim Hoover*cough).

Polling is about determining a population's belief by asking a representative sample, so polls that don't accurately represent the population they are polling shouldn't be counted as accurate representations of that population's sentiment. Case in point (again): PPP's latest poll of Colorado.

The PPP poll out today claims Obama is beating Romney in Colorado, 49-42, but that's when they oversample Democrats by 7.3%, undersample Republicans by 2% and undersample unaffiliateds by 4.4% compared to the active voter registration totals in Colorado as of June 1.

The Democrat flacks over at PPP must also have missed veteran Democratic pollster Peter Hart's focus group in Colorado last week where Obama was dubbed a "slick salesman, but his words didn't match his actions" by a group of undecided voters, 10 of 12 whom voted for Obama in 2008.

And for some godforsaken reason the media is reporting the poll without any mention of the serious sampling flaws.

For example, Alicia Caldwell at The Denver Post blindly wrote up the results without bothering to mention the fact that it polled a Colorado electorate that doesn't exist. Do they teach statistics in J-School? Did she not scroll down her own blog to read Curtis Hubbard's coverage of the brutal Denver focus group? Didn't that make her wonder about such a wildly divergent result in the PPP poll versus the focus group?

Even the normally solid reporter at Politico, Alexander Burns, reports the poll without even mentioning the enormous statistical problem it has.

It may be an easy post and click generator to write up poll results, but reporters should at least know what they're reporting before they click the publish button.

Two Colorado polls on the Presidential election released today — Rasmussen Reports and Purple Poll — show the race for President to be exactly as the pundits predict, extremely close. Rasmussen has Romney and Obama tied at 45%, while the Purple Poll has Obama up two.

The Rasmussen poll was conducted on June 6 with 500 Likely Voters, with a margin of error of 4.5%. Sample was 32R/27D/41U.

The Purple Poll, conducted by the bipartisan public affairs firm Purple Strategies, was conducted May 31 – June 5 with 600 Likely Voters, with a 4% margin of error. No sample data was given.

With the race staying pretty much the same in the ballot test numbers, you have to look beneath to see the important trends identified.

A couple key findings:

Rasmussen: 44% of respondents said their finances were getting worse, to only 25% who report improvement.

Rasmussen: Fifty-two percent (52%) of Colorado voters say the choice between Obama and Romney is one they are excited about, while 39% say they’ll simply be voting for the lesser of two evils this election.

Rasmussen: Obama holds a very slight 49% to 47% edge over Romney among voters who are excited about the choice of candidates. Romney leads 48% to 39% among those who will be voting for the lesser of two evils.

Purple Poll: 57 Percent Of Colorado Voters Think The Country Is On The Wrong Track, While 37 Percent Think It Is On The Right Track.

Purple Poll: Mitt Romney is closing the gap with President Obama across Purple States, as Republicans consolidate and independents lean toward Romney.

Colorado is likely to be one of the tightest finishes in the country, both polls find. No news there.

As analysts keep repeating, what is key to Colorado is swing, Unaffiliated voters. Those folks don't tend to get excited about candidates, which is why they swing back and forth, but instead vote for the lesser of two evils — which is why negative advertising works so well.

With that in mind, both Rasmussen and the Purple Poll have positive findings for Romney. Voters are seeing things get worse, not better, in the four years Obama has been in office.

As Rasmussen finds, Romney leads among voters who will decide among the lesser of two evils, 48% to 39%. As Rasmussen oversampled Unaffiliateds that would seem to be a striking finding.

With an economy of 40+ months of unemployment over 8%, and Colorado's unemployment rising last month, it seems a safe bet that at this point in the race, Obama is not in an enviable place.

We meant to hit this last week. In a Colorado poll by the Democrat firm Public Policy Polling (PPP), Senator Mark Udall is not doing well, with a lowly 40% approval rating. It appears Washington, DC's taint has splashed back on the formerly beloved Udall.

That is especially troubling for Udall considering how much the poll oversamples liberals and Democrats.

Peak news contributor Dave Diepenbrock recently pointed out that the PPP poll oversampled liberals by 12.5% and undersampled moderates by 6.5% and conservatives by 4%.

When Diepenbrock recalculated the PPP results for President based on the correct ideological sample, using Gallup's numbers, President Obama's supposed 13-point lead over Romney turned into a one-point Romney lead. Imagine what Udall's approval rating might look like if the approval rating was calculated based on a proper ideological sample of Colorado's electorate.

With Udall's re-elect only two and a half years away, will the DC-stink get worse? We don't suppose he'll end up smelling like outsider roses come 2014.

If a poll designed to make Democrats look good has Udall this low, we wonder how much panic is going on in Udall's world right now.

There are plenty of similarities between Presidents Obama and Carter, but today there is one in particular worth noting. As of today, gas prices have officially doubled under Obama. The only other President to have that occur in their first term? Carter. We all remember how well that re-election campaign worked out.

Obama has hit one more Carter benchmark – both saw gas prices double in their first term of office.

In fact, while just barely, Obama has seen an even higher gas price increase than Carter dealt with under his administration.

Under the Carter administration, gas prices increased by 103.77 percent. Gas prices since Obama took office have risen by 103.79 percent. [Peak emphasis[

The Obama campaign is frightened of the damage that high gas prices are doing to Obama. The best proof of that?

The last two ads run by Obama and the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA not only mentioned gas prices but both ads begin by pushing back against ads targeting Obama on gas prices.

Other proof high gas prices are gouging Obama's support? A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll that shows 2/3 of Americans disapprove of Obama’s handling of high gas prices.

With Obama's Energy Secretary on record saying he wanted gas prices to reach European levels, which have surpassed $8/gallon, we honestly don't know how Obama's campaign expects to deflect blame.

If the person you put in charge of your energy policy says he wants to raise gas prices, and then gas prices double under your tenure, how in the world are you going to convince people it's not your fault?

Last night's three state Santorum sweep was a shocker to say the least. While his wins in Minnesota and Missouri were somewhat expected based on prior published polling, Santorum's out-of-nowhere victory in Colorado stunned pundits and politicos across the board.

We had been predicting for a few days that Santorum would have a strong finish at the caucuses, stronger than many in the chattering class had accounted for in their analysis. Yet even we didn't see the win coming.

He worked the state harder than anyone, positioned himself as the true Romney alternative and rode a last minute wave of momentum into a momentous victory.

Here are 7 takeaways we took from last night's Santorum shocker.

1. Colorado conservatives' independence: Just as Colorado conservatives sent a clear message to John McCain in 2008 that they weren't willing to sign on to his inevitable candidacy, overwhelmingly voting for Romney, in 2012 they reminded the country of their rugged Western independence, giving the race to 2012's version of 2008 Romney, Rick Santorum. Romney did not work the state hard enough giving voters a reason to support him, but rather was trying to ride the wave of inevitability. That doesn't fly here.

2. Endorsements matter, just not from politicians: While Romney had all of the statewide elected officials, 16 state legislators and the full stable of former elected officials like Hank Brown and Bill Owens, Santorum had the folks that conservatives really care about. In 2012, Michelle Malkin's endorsement matters far more to conservatives than Mark Waller's or Larry Liston's. Malkin, who has twice as many Twitter followers as Santorum's Presidential campaign, and has been ranked the most influential blogger in politics, was an enormously powerful force in branding Santorum as the leading anti-Romney. In the future, we suggest candidates spend less time seeking John Suthers' endorsement and more trying to convince those that the grassroots listens to.

3. Newt Gingrich is dead in the water: Just as we predicted the day of the caucus, perhaps the most significant long-term impact of last night's results is that Gingrich has lost the mantle of the conservative alternative to Romney. He wasn't on the ballot in Missouri, finished a distant fourth in Minnesota and was a complete non-factor in Colorado's race. With $600,000 in debt, his campaign will watch in agony as Santorum sucks up millions in grassroots fundraising over the next couple of weeks that they direly need to run ads in the expensive media markets of Super Tuesday. Santorum now has the Mo', the money and the mantle. And Gingrich won't even have a debate to shine in for another two weeks.

4. PPP sucks at polling Colorado: Democrat polling firm, Public Policy Polling (PPP), has an atrocious track record in Colorado. Last fall they polled the state but oversampled Democrats by 8-points, rendering their results meaningless. The night before Colorado Republicans went to their precinct cacucus, PPP released a Colorado poll with Romney at 37, Santorum 27, Gingrich 21, and Paul at 13. The real results? Santorum 40, Romney 35, Gingrich 13, Paul 12. PPP got it embarrassingly wrong. Note this for when they show polls with Obama leading in Colorado in the next couple of months.

5. Ron Paul's supporters aren't voting Republicans. As AP reporter Kristen Wyatt noted on Twitter, Ron Paul's rallies had more people than he got votes last night. As we've seen in other states that have elections closed to only registered Republicans, Ron Paul vastly underperformed expectations. That seems to be because his support comes from a young demographic that doesn't tend to be registered as Republican. While he surpassed his showing of 8.4% in 2008, he still came in a distant fourth place. As voters had to be registered as Republicans since December, they had to prepare months in advance, something not conducive to the younger demographic. In Iowa, voters could change their registration the day of the caucus, which likely boosted Paul's finish there significantly. In Colorado, he had no such luck.

6. Romney can't mail it in anywhere. With no TV ads, little direct mail, and only a modest ground effort, Romney thought he could win with a light Colorado foot print and he was so very wrong. Some pundits have said that he can only win with negative TV blitzes, forgetting that Presidential elections are almost entirely defined by negative ads on TV. Even the supposed positive campaign of Obama ran more negative ads than any Presidential campaign in history. Santorum is certainly going to see his fair share of attack ads in the coming weeks, but Romney will need to not forget the lesson he keeps learning, which is that he can't take anything for granted.

7. This race still has some juice left in it. While Romney was hoping February would be a coronation, it instead is shaping up to be a hard fought slog. Romney is still the nearly prohibitive favorite to be the nominee, but last night put a serious chink in his armor of inevitability. He has not closed the deal with the base by a long shot. Conservatives have not been convinced that he can champion their cause in his campaign. After his gaffe on the 'very poor,' even establishment Republicans began to doubt his image as the more professional disciplined candidate to take on Barack Obama. Between needing to prove his conservative bona fides and demonstrate his superiority as a candidate through message discipline and campaign organization, Romney has some serious challenges ahead of him before he can claim the nomination.

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